NRDC Action Fundhttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org
The goal of the NRDC Action Fund is to grow the environmental majority across AmericaThu, 13 Dec 2018 19:33:27 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8Trump Ignores Election Results, Maintains Reckless Coursehttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org/trump-ignores-election-results-maintains-reckless-course/
Mon, 10 Dec 2018 17:45:25 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7535In the 116th Congress, with its new pro-environment leaders, there is an opportunity for much-needed climate action on Capitol Hill. But even after the American people decisively rejected President Trump’s pro-polluter agenda in the 2018 midterm elections, his administration is plowing ahead on policy goals that threaten our environment and our health. Signaling the Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore […]

Drilling for oil and gas in waters off the Atlantic coast isn’t just dangerous to animals, it’s potentially devastating to the coastal communities that would bear the immense economic damage from accidents and spills off their beaches. Voters firmly rejected offshore drilling in elections in South Carolina and in Florida, two states whose Atlantic coasts are now at risk after NOAA’s announcement.

The administration’s antagonism toward environmental protection and climate change is also being reflected abroad. Earlier this month, as leaders of the world’s biggest economies met in Argentina for the annual G20 Summit, President Trump was the only leader who refused to affirm his nation’s commitments to the Paris climate agreement. And just this past weekend, the Trump administration joined Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Kuwait in blocking the endorsement of the most recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned the world that only a dozen years are left to curb the worst impacts of runaway global warming.

]]>10 Climate Champions Coming to Washingtonhttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org/10-climate-champions-coming-to-washington/
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 23:34:19 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7526Sen.-elect Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) The 2018 midterm elections swept dozens of pro-environment candidates into Congress, and several of these newly-elected members are themselves scientists or environmental advocates. They’re the type of forward-thinking leaders who the NRDC Action Fund worked hard to help elect in 2018, and who America needs in order to tackle the mounting challenges brought forth by climate […]

The 2018 midterm elections swept dozens of pro-environment candidates into Congress, and several of these newly-elected members are themselves scientists or environmental advocates. They’re the type of forward-thinking leaders who the NRDC Action Fund worked hard to help elect in 2018, and who America needs in order to tackle the mounting challenges brought forth by climate change. Here are ten new members we expect will be environmental champions in the 116th Congress.

Based on the assessment by scientists at 13 federal government agencies, America can expect severe economic disruption across the country because of the effects of climate change, such as lower quality water for our farms, unstable ecosystems, more fragile infrastructure and more. The report’s findings tell us these scenarios must be treated as likely outcomes to be mitigated, not possibilities to be speculated upon.

In contrast to President Trump, who breezily dismissed the report, both current and incoming members of Congress have spoken out about how the National Climate Assessment presents a clear case for action:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.): “Rising seas and extreme weather don’t care what you ‘believe,’ Mr. President. #ClimateChange is a scientific reality – and this report was produced by your own administration’s experts.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.): “We cannot afford more delay and inaction from the Trump administration. It’s time for the U.S. to show strong leadership and take action now.”

Rep.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.): “A report released today details how climate change and the extreme environmental events it causes are threatening our health, economy, infrastructure, & security. Congress must acknowledge this threat, work to fight the impact, and address the causes.”

Rep.-elect Sean Casten (D-Ill.): “Climate change matters. You cannot call yourself a leader if you are waiting to act until it polls well.”

In addition to the National Climate Assessment, several other major reports confirm that America’s current course of inaction will harm future generations on an unprecedented scale. The IPCC report last month outlined the dire global threats of failing to slow climate change. Another major international study found that current climate trends point to “unacceptably high” levels of risk for public health. And the recent United Nations’ 2018 Emissions Gap Report found that the United States isn’t doing nearly enough to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

America’s elected leaders at every level must take steps to prevent the disasters laid out in our federal government’s own National Climate Assessment, and we are thrilled that the next House of Representatives will have the pro-environmental leadership necessary to take on these challenges.

]]>Election Boosts Chances of Climate, Environmental Action in the Stateshttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org/election-boosts-environmental-action-in-states/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 15:46:06 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7515Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) (Photo: Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan) Pro-environment gubernatorial candidates were victorious this year from the Eastern Seaboard to the Golden Gate. With pro-environment lawmakers now heading to numerous governors’ mansions and state legislatures, bold climate action is increasingly possible in these states, even while the federal government refuses to act. The […]

Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) (Photo: Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan)

Pro-environment gubernatorial candidates were victorious this year from the Eastern Seaboard to the Golden Gate. With pro-environment lawmakers now heading to numerous governors’ mansions and state legislatures, bold climate action is increasingly possible in these states, even while the federal government refuses to act.

The next governor of Colorado will be one of the most environmentally-minded. Gov.-elect Jared Polis (D) campaigned on transitioning Colorado to 100% renewable energy by 2040—a more ambitious goal even than California’s or Hawaii’s. And pro-environment legislators have also taken control of the Colorado State Senate, paving the way for climate action.

On the west coast, California Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom’s (D) record suggests he’s eager to expand on outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) strong environmental legacy. Brown signed legislation mandating that California transition to 100% clean energy in the state by 2045, which Newsom wants to expand on by making California a net exporter of clean energy. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), both climate champions, will also enjoy expanded pro-environment leadership in their state legislatures.

In Nevada, Gov.-elect Steve Sisolak (D) is looking to build more clean energy in his state; he campaigned on expanding solar energy and protecting the state’s iconic public lands. And with the passage of Question 6, he and legislative leaders in the state have a mandate to commit Nevada to a more robust renewable energy portfolio.

Although a few statewide environmental ballot initiatives did not succeed this year, the 2018 elections have given a number of state governments the ability to realize the goals of those initiatives through bold executive leadership and legislative action.

]]>Coastal South Carolina Voters Reject Offshore Drillinghttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org/coastal-south-carolina-voters-reject-offshore-drilling/
Wed, 14 Nov 2018 18:00:40 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7508The environment was one key reason Republicans lost the midterms, according to an op-ed from Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), in yesterday’s NY Times: The environment matters to voters. As a party, we have somehow forgotten that conservatism should apply to more than just financial resources. Being conservative should entail being conservative with natural resources, too. I’ve always believed this — so […]

The environment was one key reason Republicans lost the midterms, according to an op-ed from Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), in yesterday’s NY Times:

The environment matters to voters. As a party, we have somehow forgotten that conservatism should apply to more than just financial resources. Being conservative should entail being conservative with natural resources, too. I’ve always believed this — so much so that the Sierra Club endorsed me in my race for re-election as governor.

Not so many years ago, I was hardly an outlier. But the Republican playbook has changed, and it damages Republicans in suburban districts.

Rep. Sanford’s own district (SC-1) illustrates the point. Sanford has been a true champion in his opposition to offshore drilling and seismic blasting; Katie Arrington, his primary opponent, was not. She criticized the Congressman for rejecting Trump’s offshore drilling plans, among other heresies—and quickly lost support in the general election from Republican mayors in her district. They endorsed her Democratic opponent, the ocean engineer Joe Cunningham, for his firm anti-drilling stance.

Arrington tried to pivot but faltered. Offshore oil and gas was the most salient issue for voters in this election, and she lost the district for her party for the first time in three decades.

Again Rep. Sanford gets to the heart of the matter:

As Republicans, we’ve drifted from our roots. The party, in fact, has a remarkable legacy on conservation and the environment — and this race suggests we should recommit ourselves to it.

Everyone who knows the history of the U.S. environmental movement can appreciate the truth of this. A Republican named Teddy Roosevelt was one of America’s great conservationists, pivotal in the creation of the National Park system. John Saylor fought for the Alleghenies, Nelson Rockefeller helped preserve the Adirondacks, and Richard Nixon signed most of the laws that remain, fifty years on, the bedrock of environmental protection in this country.

The writing is on the wall. Climate change is felt increasingly in our lives, with climate-enhanced hurricanes battering the east coast and wildfires ravaging the west. As the next generation—who recognize the burden we’ve placed on them and their children—assume their share of the vote, the Republican party will not be able to sustain the drift from its conservation roots.

Our environmental politics are changing. South Carolina’s First Congressional District is a bellwether. As the administration and the new Congress consider Trump’s drilling agenda the message couldn’t be clearer: Expanded drilling is opposed across the aisle.

]]>Americans Vote for Powerful Check on Trump’s Anti-Environment Agendahttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org/americans-vote-for-powerful-check-on-trumps-anti-environment-agenda/
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 20:31:29 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7492Americans from coast-to-coast have voted for change. They rejected President Trump’s pro-polluter politics, instead handing control of the House of Representatives to a leadership team that embraces common sense environmental safeguards and welcomes the clean energy economy. Lawmakers in the House will be able to hold the Trump administration accountable for enforcing the federal laws that protect us from polluted […]

Americans from coast-to-coast have voted for change. They rejected President Trump’s pro-polluter politics, instead handing control of the House of Representatives to a leadership team that embraces common sense environmental safeguards and welcomes the clean energy economy.

Lawmakers in the House will be able to hold the Trump administration accountable for enforcing the federal laws that protect us from polluted air and contaminated water. And many more states and cities will act to reduce heat-trapping carbon pollution and grow clean energy jobs. If you ever doubted that elections matter, this important U-turn should convince us all that building the political power of the environmental community and its allies should be a priority in the 2020 election cycle and beyond.

The NRDC Action Fund made its largest-ever investment in electoral politics over the past two years, joining the broader environmental community in significantly expanding our political reach. With a focus on doing our part to protect the Senate’s “green firewall,” the group of at least 41 senators who can vote to block the Trump administration’s extreme anti-environment legislative agenda, the Action Fund:

Endorsed environmental champions in nearly two dozen U.S. Senate races:

Raised millions of dollars for their campaigns through the NRDC Action Fund PAC and GiveGreen;

Turned out voters through Green Wave 2018, our campaign aimed at motivating hundreds of thousands of Americans in key states and districts.

Recruited nearly 2,000 NRDC Action Fund activists and members to volunteer to help get out the vote.

The NRDC Action Fund PAC had its most successful election cycle to date, working with LCV Victory Fund and NextGen America to raise more than $20 million for our endorsed pro-environment candidates and others through the GiveGreen. Over the past two years, 86 GiveGreen fundraising events were held across the country for pro-environment candidates for the U.S. House and Senate. The NRDC Action Fund PAC also made direct contributions totaling $107,000 to 35 House and Senate candidates.

Turning out voters was a major focus of our 2018 election work. The NRDC Action Fund invested more than $2 million in Green Wave 2018, our focused get-out-the-vote campaign intended to motivate low-to-medium propensity voters who we know care about the environment. We engaged more than 600,000 voters using tools such as peer-to-peer text messages and targeted digital ads, deploying these tactics largely in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana and Nevada.

In three states won by President Trump in 2016, pro-environment Senators Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) all won re-election. And in Nevada, Rep. Jacky Rosen (D) unseated anti-environment Sen. Dean Heller (R). On the House side, Mary Gay Scanlon, Chrissy Houlahan and Susan Wild, all Democrats running in Pennsylvania, won election as environmental champions.

We were also proud to join the League of Conservation Voters, EDF Action and other major green groups in a community-wide coordinated program mobilizing our members to support pro-environment candidates in November. Specifically, we organized members in 11 congressional districts to volunteer in person on the campaigns of pro-environment candidates. This coordinated effort was the just the start of a long-term plan to work together to build and maintain an advocacy and electoral presence in the states and districts of environmental champions.

Over the next two years, the NRDC Action Fund will focus our energy on lobbying Congress and state legislatures to act on the climate crisis by investing in clean energy, sustainable infrastructure and modern transportation. But we will also lay the groundwork to impact a presidential election that will be decisive in shaping America’s role in the global fight against climate change.

Yesterday the American people voted for a powerful check on the Trump agenda. We sent a message to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue—we will not sacrifice the health and safety of our families, and the future of our planet, for short-term polluter profits.

For nearly two years, we’ve seen President Trump wage the worst White House assault in history on our environment and health. Rolling back commonsense safeguards, slashing enforcement budgets, ignoring sound science and walking away from the progress we’ve made shifting to cleaner energy sources and away from the dirty fossil fuels that are driving global climate change.

It’s been one long heyday for industrial polluters, and one long nightmare for the rest of us.

Come Election Day this Tuesday, it’s our turn, all of America, to stand up and say what matters to us.

Time to repudiate – decisively – these reckless attacks and the incessant mendacity behind them. Time to stand up for the manifest national interest we share in clean air and water, healthy wildlife and habitat and the sanctity of public ocean waters and lands. Time to stand up for a livable world for our children.

Trump’s party won’t hold him to account. Nor will Republicans push back against his unbridled rampage against foundational protections we spent decades to put in place.

That’s why sitting this one out is not an option. Not with so much at stake for our families, communities and nation. Not with all we’ve been hit with these past two years. Not with all we stand to gain by putting responsible leadership in place in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate our statehouses and governors’ mansions. Not with so many candidates of vision and courage ready to stand up for the interests and values we share.

Every election is about the kind of future we want to create together, as Americans. It’s about the kind of nation we aspire to become. Never in my lifetime, or likely in yours, has our choice been this clear or this certain.

Come Tuesday, every one of us needs to get to the polling station. Every one of us needs to vote.

We won’t stand by and watch Trump roll back the Clean Water Rule to clear the way for more pollution of the wetlands and streams that feed drinking water sources for one in every three Americans. We’ll vote to protect clean water.

And we won’t be silent as Trump turns from the central environmental challenge of our time, walks away from the fight against climate change and breaks our promise to the rest of the world. We’ll vote to cut dangerous carbon pollution today, so our kids don’t inherit climate catastrophe tomorrow.

And we know we need to be reducing, not expanding, the waters and communities at risk of the next BP-style disaster, while we reduce our reliance on oil and gas in favor of cleaner, smarter alternatives.

Trump claims his attacks on our environment and health are about cutting costs and saving jobs, but we know better.

We know our economy has nearly quadrupled in size, growing an inflation-adjusted 370 percent since President Richard Nixon formed the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, while we’ve added more than 77 million new jobs.

Trump says we need to hand over nearly two million acres of public lands to take them out of the hands of Washington “bureaucrats.” But we know better. We know it’s really about turning over these lands, special places that belong to you and me, to the coal, oil, uranium and gas industries, and these maps prove it.

Trump says we can’t afford to protect our children from the growing dangers of climate change. And we know better than that, too.

We know we’ve got a little more than a decade to cut worldwide fossil fuel use 45 percent, or we’ll condemn our children to a world of hurt. We know investors will devote a staggering $8.4 trillion into doing that, and more, over just the next three decades. And we know more than 3.2 million Americans get up every day working to help us become more efficient, so we do more with less waste; helping us to build, right here in this country, some of the best all-electric and hybrid cars anywhere in the world; and helping us to get more clean, homegrown American power from the wind and sun.

We’ve heard enough from Trump about how to put polluter profits first and put the rest of us at risk. Come Tuesday, it’s our time to speak.

Our time to say 64 percent of us expect the government to do more, not less, to fight climate change. Our time to say nearly eight in ten support statewide policies that promote American success in the economic play of our lifetime, the epic shift away from the dirty fossil fuels of the past and toward the cleaner, smarter energy options of the future.

The Trump assault is dependent on one thing. It depends on the rest of us being asleep at the wheel, not bothering to show up on Election Day, not bothering to use the most powerful engine of influence ever devised: our voice as American voters.

We’re not going to let him get away with it.

We still hold, each of us, in the palm of our hand, more political power than any other people, in any other place at any other time in the history of the world. Come Tuesday, let’s stand up and bring it.

]]>10 Anti-Environment House Members We Won’t Miss in 2019https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/10-anti-environment-house-members-we-wont-miss-in-2019/
Wed, 31 Oct 2018 21:52:24 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7459Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), climate denier and endangered incumbent. The 2018 election is likely to bring a lot of new faces to Washington, and some anti-environment House incumbents will likely be out of a job. Here are several we certainly wouldn’t miss if they are defeated. These races, some rated as pure toss-ups, all feature lawmakers whose score on the […]

The 2018 election is likely to bring a lot of new faces to Washington, and some anti-environment House incumbents will likely be out of a job. Here are several we certainly wouldn’t miss if they are defeated. These races, some rated as pure toss-ups, all feature lawmakers whose score on the League of Conservation Voters Scorecard ranges from 0% to 10%, indicating they almost always vote against the environment.

Denham became a U.S. Representative in 2010 after serving in the California State Senate, where he defended adding climate change skepticism to California’s public education curriculum. Denham’s incumbency advantage is likely to help him in this political environment, and sparse independent public polling here makes it difficult to know if he can survive a possible Democratic wave. Denham’s challenger is Josh Harder, a fifth-generation Central Valley resident and venture capitalist.

Voting out these anti-environmental members of Congress will serve as a critical first step toward rejecting their pro-polluter agenda. But it’s going to take everything we’ve got. Pledge to vote on Tuesday, November 6th, and volunteer to text out the vote from the comfort of your home.

]]>Are You Ready for November 6th?https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/are-you-ready-for-november-6th/
Tue, 30 Oct 2018 21:35:45 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7455With less than a week to go until Election Day, many races are deadlocked and control of Congress is up for grabs. The margins may be small, but the stakes are enormous. This is our biggest chance yet to tell President Trump and his pro-polluter allies in Congress that America rejects their dangerous agenda. But it all comes down to […]

With less than a week to go until Election Day, many races are deadlocked and control of Congress is up for grabs. The margins may be small, but the stakes are enormous. This is our biggest chance yet to tell President Trump and his pro-polluter allies in Congress that America rejects their dangerous agenda. But it all comes down to turnout—whether we all vote in this critical election.

We cannot afford a repeat of 2016. If we want to boot Trump’s allies out of office and replace them with environmental champions; if we want a chance to save our climate, our clean air and water and our health; if we want to leave our children with a livable planet, every single one of us must turn out and vote by November 6.

That’s why it’s so critical that everyone has a plan to turn in their ballot this year. Whether you vote in every election or this is your very first, confirming your voting plan ahead of time can help you follow through on Election Day. If you haven’t voted yet, and you’re not sure what your plan is yet, we have a checklist to help you make one.

It’s critical that we get every pro-environment voter out to the polls by Election Day. So, once you have a plan to vote, or if you’ve already voted, we encourage you to share this checklist with someone you know who hasn’t voted yet.

]]>Tallying the Costs of Trump’s Reckless Assault on the Environment and Public Healthhttps://www.nrdcactionfund.org/tallying-the-costs-of-trumps-reckless-assault-on-the-environment-and-public-health/
Fri, 26 Oct 2018 14:14:58 +0000https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/?p=7428President Donald Trump with then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke Amid the rancor and chaos President Trump has brought to Washington, it’s easy to overlook the unconscionable toll of widening hazard and enduring harm he’s imposing on the country, by waging the worst White House assault in history on our environment and public health. From […]

President Donald Trump with then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke

Amid the rancor and chaos President Trump has brought to Washington, it’s easy to overlook the unconscionable toll of widening hazard and enduring harm he’s imposing on the country, by waging the worst White House assault in history on our environment and public health. From our cities to our farmlands, from the mountains to the sea, Trump has put special interests first, and put the rest of us at risk, to bolster polluter profits at the public’s expense.

We ignore these attacks, and their mounting costs, at our peril. Trump’s party, though, has refused to stand up for the public interest or to hold him to account.

That’s what midterm elections are about.

As we go to the polls this year, we need to support candidates who will stand up to this president and his reckless assault on our environment and health.

Gutting Protections We All Rely On

The Environmental Protection Agency has served as a boon not only to America’s environment, but to our economy as well.

At the time, industry howled that it could not survive responsible public oversight, sounding dire warnings of economic collapse and spinning the false narrative that Americans had to somehow choose between a clean environment and jobs.

Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the entire edifice of environmental protection, falsely claiming that his regulatory rampage is about cutting costs and growing jobs. He’s misled his supporters into believing we can’t prosper without plundering our world and endangering our people.

We can prosper, and we are. A modern economy thrives on predictable rules of the road, as the decades-long record proves. Leaving our families and communities vulnerable to toxic pollution and industrial ruin is nothing to brag about: it’s penny wise and pound foolish.

Recent analysis from the White House itself shows that environmental protections, safety rules and other major federal regulations pay out between $2.50 and $11.68 in public benefits for every dollar invested to comply with commonsense safeguards. Protecting the American people is not only the right thing to do: it’s a sound investment in our future.

The fact is, we don’t save money by allowing our air and oceans to be poisoned, our public lands and waters to be despoiled and our future to be imperiled by unchecked climate chaos. We simply shift the rising costs of environmental degradation and health from the polluters to the public.

Trump’s flailing assault on our environment and health follows the same reckless script as the fraudulent GOP tax scam that’s already spiked the federal deficit. Both are designed to further enrich some of the wealthiest shareholders and most profitable corporations in history – and leave our kids to pay the price.

“Climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. To prevent the worst impacts of climate catastrophe, the panel warns, we must cut carbon emissions – which come mostly from burning coal, oil and gas – 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030, and eliminate them entirely, or somehow compensate for those that remain, by 2050.

That’s the global scientific consensus embodied in a report drafted by 91 scientists drawing on the findings of more than 6,000 peer-reviewed studies.

There’s something seriously off with a president who makes decisions based on what he calls his “natural instinct for science.” Perhaps worse is the GOP leadership that trundles approvingly along behind. We didn’t use a mood ring to put a man on the moon and we won’t grasp the opportunities or rise to the challenges of our time using divining rods, whim and fancy.

Anchoring our future to the dirty fuels of the past is a fool’s errand. The world is moving on from fossil fuels and transitioning toward a low-carbon future, with some $8.4 trillion in clean energy investment projected over just the next three decades. We want American workers to be the winners in that fast-growing global market, and that begins at home.

Right now, across this country, 3.2 million Americans get up every day and go to work helping us to become more energy efficient, so we do more with less in our workplaces and homes; helping us to build, right here in this country, some of the best all electric and hybrid cars anywhere in the world; and helping us to get more clean, homegrown American power from the wind and sun.

That’s nearly three times as many as the 1.1 million who work to produce and refine fuels from coal, gas and oil (912,096); and to operate the power plants (171,635) that burn those fuels.

Clean energy is creating the jobs of the future, and 61 percent of our people know it. We grow those jobs with policies that help to advance a just and equitable shift away from the fossil fuels that are driving climate change and toward cleaner, smarter ways to power our future.

That’s not what Trump’s fossil fuel backers want, though, so Trump’s doing all he can to put the brakes on clean energy progress.

Killing the Clean Power Plan

The coal industry, in particular, wants Trump to kill the Clean Power Plan, one of the most important measures we’ve taken to fight climate change. The 2015 EPA rule is aimed at cleaning up the dirty power plants that account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions. Trump is working to repeal the rule and replace it with a do-little substitute.

The Clean Power Plan sets the first-ever national limits on carbon emissions from power plants, with the goal of cutting that pollution 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. It tailors carbon limits based on each state’s individual power mix, then lets power companies determine the most cost-effective way to hit the targets. They may, for example, help consumers improve energy efficiency, shift to cleaner options like wind and solar power, or tune up their generating gear.

Killing the Clean Power Plan won’t reverse the tide of history. It would, though, put us well behind the curve in our obligation to fight the worst impacts of climate change.

Slamming Clean Car Gains Into Reverse

In 2012, after extensive consultations with the auto industry, the EPA and the U.S. Transportation Department issued new clean car and economy standards. They were meant to roughly double the fuel economy of our cars by 2025, to a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon. That meant slashing in half the carbon pollution per mile driven, one of the most effective measures we could take to fight climate change.

The standards are a win-win for American families. Hitting the new target would save drivers up to $7,400 in fuel costs over the life of a 2025 vehicle, while adding roughly $1,800 to the price of the new car. The result: savings of some $5,000 in overall costs.

The savings were already adding up by last summer, when the standards had already helped improve gas mileage for new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks.

In August, though, the Trump administration proposed rolling back the standards to a fleet average of just 37 miles per gallon by 2025.

The result could be as much as 1 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere between now and 2035. That’s roughly as much carbon pollution as our cars and trucks pump into the atmosphere in an entire year. Weakening the new car standards also means an estimated 60,000 jobs by workers making more efficient vehicle parts and materials would be put at risk; more soot and smog in the air we breathe; and some $200 billion in added fuel costs for drivers of new cars bought in the six years after 2021.

One day, Trump claims climate change isn’t really a problem. Then, suddenly, it’s too big of a problem to fix. This president will say anything, it seems, to justify doing nothing about climate change.

As the new UN climate report makes clear, it’s likely we’re headed to something close to 1.5-degree Centigrade (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, above pre-industrial levels. To date, we’re about two-thirds of the way there. We must do everything possible to hold overall warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Centigrade, to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

The kind of increase the administration has forecast to justify rolling back car standards would ensure unfathomable destruction and danger worldwide. It’s tantamount to saying “We’re already doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

That’s now how this country rises to challenge. It’s dishonest. It’s defeatist. It’s just plain dumb.

Choking the Atmosphere with More Climate-Wrecking Methane

What most of us call “natural gas” is actually methane, often found in deposits with oil and similar hydrocarbons. Methane is a fuel. It’s also a powerful greenhouse gas. It’s the second-biggest driver of climate change, in fact, after carbon dioxide.

The oil and gas industry leaks huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere, in drilling for oil and gas, or through leaks in production equipment or pipelines.

Oil and gas operations also leak cancer-causing benzene and other toxic chemicals into the air, increasing the risk of some types of cancer, heart and lung problems, neurological disorders and even birth defects. More than 12 million Americans live within a half mile of oil and gas operations, close enough to be harmed by these pollutants, and nearly 3 million children spend their days in schools that close.

The 2017 Methane and Waste Prevention Rule called for methane-reduction measures by companies drilling on public and tribal lands, resulting in up to $403 million a year in industry cost savings and public benefits. Trump administration efforts to roll back the rule also resulted in litigation. The result: partial implementation of the rule, pending a weakened replacement the administration proposed in September.

Under a global agreement, the United States and other countries have pledged to reduce the use of HFC’s by more than 80 percent over the next 30 years, in favor of safer alternatives. A 2015 EPA order put certain HFC uses on a prohibited list.

That’s not only bad for the climate: it undercuts the incentives that led companies like Honeywell and Chemours to invest billions of dollars bringing safer coolants to market.

Fortunately, states are stepping up. California, New York, Maryland and Connecticut have committed to curbing HFCs. A dozen others are following their lead. That’s no substitute for national action, but it shows we can sustain needed progress on climate change when leaders put people over profits.

Low Balling the Damage from Carbon Pollution

The U.S. government uses a calculation known as the social cost of carbon in cost-benefit analyses for new or rewritten environmental safeguards and rules. It’s an estimate, in dollars, of the long-term damage from one tone of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year, as calculated by EPAeconomists.

It’s a bit like saying highway crashes aren’t dangerous so we can get rid of those pesky speed limits. Except that, in the real world, speed kills. And carbon pollution brings hazard and harm that impose real costs on our people.

World v Trump: 194 to 1

Finally, Trump is working to withdraw U.S. participation from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. That agreement was a triumph of American leadership. We’re doing what’s right for our people here at home, and the whole world got on board. Every nation on Earth – 195 – put plans on the table in Paris to cut or curb fossil fuel use. Why is the United States the only nation on Earth to walk away from that?

Trump’s false critique of the Paris agreement has been widely debunked. The fact is, the Paris accord sent a message to the world: every nation is united in the environmental fight of our time. It sent a message to investors: the world is transitioning to a low-carbon economy with a staggering $8.4 trillion in clean energy projects at stake. And it sent a message to our children: we won’t condemn you to a world of climate chaos, break our promise to the rest of the world and leave future generations to pay the price.

Trump is squandering what may be our last best hope to get that right and surrendering our future to climate chaos is not leadership. It’s reckless, irresponsible and wrong.

The Gulf of Mexico produces 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, about 8 percent of U.S. consumption. That’s where the United States gets nearly all of the oil and gas currently produced in federal ocean waters.

New drilling and production hasn’t been allowed for decades in federal Pacific or Atlantic waters or, for that matter, most Arctic waters. In January, the Trump administration proposed opening those waters to drilling, a move that would expose nearly every U.S. coastal community to the risk of the next BP-style blowout.

Just this week, The Washington Post reported that a damaged Taylor Energy site 12 miles off the Louisiana coast has been leaking between 300 and 700 barrels of crude oil into the Gulf every day since 2004. That’s as much as 29,000 gallons – every day for 14 years. Neither our government nor the company has come clean about this to the public. We don’t have even a preliminary reckoning of the mounting damage this is doing to Gulf waters and coasts, nor has the company been fully held to account.

The Taylor Energy disaster is a shocking example of the danger and ongoing damage this industry brings.

In the seven years following the BP blowout, the offshore oil industry experienced at least 4,105 explosions, fires, collisions, spills and other incidents that resulted in 1,568 injuries and 13 deaths, according to official statistics as compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. There were 34 oil spills of more than 2,000 gallons each, and countless lesser spills that were never reported. We need responsible safeguards to make this industry less risky, not more dangerous.

Small wonder why. People don’t want offshore drilling to jeopardize ocean-related tourism and recreation that accounted for $90.3 billion in economic activity in 2015 alone in states that would be impacted by Trump’s proposals. And nobody wants this industry to threaten the special coastal places in these states, home to 68 national parks and monuments that together hosted 84 million visits in 2017.

Why would we put our ocean waters, marine life, coastal communities and all they support at risk of the next BP-style disaster?

That’s four times as much as we were exporting just a decade ago, and it’s enough to meet 35 percent of our domestic demand – 20.5 million barrels a day – if it were sold in the United States. Instead, American families and communities get the risk, big oil gets the profit and our foreign rivals get the fuel.

Trump calls that “America first.” We call it a con job. Expanding drilling puts some of our most treasured public resources at needless risk to line the pockets of big oil and gas. It puts industry profits first, and it puts the rest of us at risk.

Making Our Air More Dangerous to Breathe

Mercury is a hazardous byproduct of burning coal. It contaminates fish, where it remains in the tissue, to be passed on to anyone who eats the fish. Even small amounts of mercury can cause brain damage in infants and small children, as well as cardiovascular and central nervous system illnesses in adults.

In December, 2011, the EPA finalized the first national Mercury and Air Toxics Standards to reduce toxic air pollution from power plants that burn coal and oil. These plants cough up powerful pollutants, including mercury and other toxic metals, acid gases, and organic air contaminants like dioxin. Ugly stuff.

The long overdue protections have been in place since 2015. Covering some 1,400 generators at 600 power plants nationwide, the standards are providing up to $90 billion in public health benefits every year. In part, that’s by avoiding up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks and 540,000 missed days of work or school annually.

As a lobbyist, Wheeler helped Murray fight the Clean Power Plan. Now, with Trump’s blessing, he’s doing the coal industry’s bidding from inside the EPA.

Under Trump, the agency Richard Nixon set up as our last line of defense against toxic pollution and industrial ruin has joined forces with some of the biggest polluters on the planet to strip us of safeguards that protect the environment and public health.

That’s not great. It’s corrupt to the core.

More Pollution for Our Sources of Drinking Water

A coal ash pond in North Carolina (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The EPA’s 2015 Clean Water Rule, also known as the Waters of the United States, clarifies provisions in the Clean Water Act to ensure that wetlands and small streams get the protection they need to prevent pollution of our larger waterways. That’s important. The affected waterways include drinking water sources for one in every three Americans.

If it takes force, the weakened rule would strip away protections that have helped us dramatically improve the quality of waterways used for swimming, fishing and to supply drinking water. It would wipe out essential protections for streams and for wetlands that filter out pollutants and protect our communities from flooding. The result would be more contaminants in our sources of drinking water, more harmful algae blooms and fewer fish, crabs and oysters in iconic estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay.

The administration is also moving to spare polluters from 2015 protections put in place to help prevent commercial cesspools of toxic coal ash from contaminating neighboring communities and waterways.

Coal ash contains a deadly brew of carcinogens, neurotoxins and other pollutants such as mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic and radium. The Trump administration stripped out 2015 protections meant to reduce the risks of coal ash spills and leaking ash dumps. If the administration continues along this destructive path, it will face a certain court challenge.

The Biggest Public Lands Grab in History

Valley of the Gods, now outside of the Bears Ears National Monument boundaries in Utah

Last December, in the single-largest attack on our public lands in U.S. history, Trump stripped needed protections from nearly two million acres of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. Here’s why: take a look here at maps that show where Trump stripped away protections, overlaid atop known deposits of oil, coal, natural gas and uranium.

As we stand up to that unprecedented attack on our country’s natural heritage, we’re braced for further moves to unravel America’s treasures, including our marine monuments. These ocean areas are home to diverse marine species – endangered whales, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, seabirds and centuries-old corals – and they are currently protected against activities such as commercial fishing (with limited exceptions), oil and gas drilling and deep-sea mining.

If the Trump administration slashes protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts marine monument, we would join with our partners to keep this irreplaceable ocean habitat safe from industrial exploitation for the benefit of the public.

For more than a century, protecting our public lands and ocean waters have been a bipartisan priority reflecting core American values about conservation and preservation of wildlife, habitat and special places. These public lands and ocean waters are a public trust, set aside in the public interest, so that future generations of Americans might know the natural splendor of this country. That’s a promise we’ve made to our children. It’s a promise we’re going to keep.

Abandoning some of the most toxic and radioactive waste in aging tanks poses an unacceptable risk to the Columbia River and the many populations that rely upon it, both trial and those of Portland and Vancouver, all downstream, and this action would only open the door to leaving even more toxic waste behind to threaten the river.

Separately, EPA undertook an underhanded process that could lead to weaker protections against radiation exposure. As part of its regulatory change on censoring science, EPA slipped in the radical theory of a few researchers and industry groups who have tried for years to downplay the dangers of so-called “small doses” of radiation.

Adopting this plan would means Superfund sites could be abandoned with low radioactive content, the effluent from nuclear plants could contain higher doses of radiation and workers at nuclear plants could be exposed to more radioactive doses each day. It even has applications for sites where oil and gas is produced through hydraulic fracturing, because the wastewater produced at fracked wells has some radioactive content.

Attacking Responsible Public Oversight

Finally, and perhaps most inscrutably, Trump has waged a broadside on the very concept of responsible public oversight of industry that pollutes our environment and threatens our health. If Trump gets his way, he’ll speed up these attacks in the months ahead, one more tactic for enriching polluters at the public’s expense.

In an executive order Trump signed ten days after taking office, he called for two safeguards to be eliminated for every new rule, standard or regulation a federal agency puts in place, regardless of the benefits these new protections provide. These are safeguards adopted to defend our families, workers and communities from harm.

Trump’s help one, harm-two approach to regulation is arbitrary, capricious and irresponsible. It also flies in the face of the Constitution for the president to assert the authority to, in effect, rewrite or rip up by personal fiat regulations federal agencies put in place to implement and enforce laws duly passed by Congress.

To date, in fact, NRDC has filed some 55 suits to protect the environment and public health against Trump administration attacks, and we’re engaged in more than a dozen others. Of the 25 cases that have been resolved, we’ve scored 21 victories.

That’s because our courts are where we bring falsehood to heel. Truth wins out over empty rhetoric and the rule of law triumphs over lies intended to stoke anger and fear.

Regulations adopted by federal agencies must be grounded in law, sound science and the public interest. They must be developed under a transparent process, in which a proposal is made public, the public is given the opportunity to comment on the proposal, and the agency involved is required to take those comments under consideration as it drafts a final rule. The final rule must then be made public, and the entire process is subject to litigation if the rule hasn’t been developed in accordance with the mandates laid out in the Administrative Procedure Act or other applicable statutes.

Nobody wants over-regulation. Our federal government, though, has no higher obligation than to protect the health and safety of our people. It does so through agencies that implement and enforce clear rules of the road, rules that are grounded in law, sound science and the public interest.

That’s how responsible public oversight is designed to work, as set forth in statutes Congress enacts, as required by our Constitution. When our government fails us, we citizens have the right to hold our government to account. That’s what government by the consent of the governed is all about. That’s the heart and soul of American democracy.

“Our Great Moral Responsibility”

Pony Express National Historic Trail, Utah (Photo: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

Whatever we voted for two years ago, nobody voted for dirty air, polluted water and the ruin of oceans, wildlife and public lands. Nobody voted to bury future generations beneath a mountain of environmental debt they can never repay. Nobody voted to sacrifice the future of a healthy planet at the altar of polluter profits.

Poll after poll shows Trump’s reckless assault on our environment and health to be wildly out of step with American values and views.

“Modern conservatives in America want to protect and preserve the values and traditions by which the nation has flourished for more than two centuries,” Reagan said. “And we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live – our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests.”

“This is our patrimony,” said Reagan. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.”

In the time of Trump, just 14 percent of us believe we’ll rise to that call and meet that responsibility, an April poll by CBS News found. A shocking 56 percent said we will leave our children a world that is worse off, not better than, the world as it is today. We cannot allow that to happen.

There can be no better test of leadership than the quality of the world we leave our children. A society that fails its children is failing. We are better than that in this country, and the challenges before us demand our best – conservative, progressive and everything in between. The stakes could not be higher, for our families, our communities and our country.